16 - April 19th thru April 25th 1999,
Vol IX
On
the Occasion of the International Day of Theatre
Theatre in Yemen, Experience
and Ambitions
Theatre is the nations' language; the much concern it receives the higher
the society could rise. Theatre criticizes bad habits and offers the good
ones. For live nations it represents a school to educate generations for
the vital art that awakens conscious and opens minds. As a nation that
still traces the past we need more than one theatre to enhance the important
of its message.
In
the past, theatre was founded as simple as possible to express man's drama
resulted from confrontation between him and natural powers that were difficult
to be understood besides controlling such powers and subjecting them to
his interests and desires.
Talking about theatre in Yemen we should reply to two questions with
loyalty and objectivity, they are:
1. Have theatre in Yemen succeeded as an experience and achieved
its ambition?
2. What are the necessary steps and substantial basis to have
a developed theatre movement in Yemen?
For the first question, we could say that theatre experience in Yemen,
for professional or immature, has accomplished many achievements and success
through its long journey started in 1910 up to 1987. This experience gave
its role in forming number of playgroups, official and private, and introducing
this art to the public where the later began to visit such shows and reacts
with them.
Despite
the long history of this experience and its huge achievements, theatre
was not given its fair chance or practiced its real rights. Theatre remained
unstable, between success and failure; it did not pass the stage of experience
to a stage of practical construction and development. Therefore theatre
couldn't reach its goals or achieve its moral, social and cultural ambitions
besides finding wide understanding audience to acknowledge its abilities
and to create a case of initiation.
It is quite obvious that the incapability of theatre in Yemen to achieve
its ambitions has some logical reasons within the whole case of obstacles,
they are as follows:
1. Bad programming and planning
Having no regular well planned theatre seasons besides inefficient
periods of time for the plays limits the creative abilities of the actors
and the directors which affect the play negatively and create an obstacle
against audience who could feel the theatre's cultural and artistic reality.
2. Plays usually submit to official occasion:
Having no regular play programs and usually connecting such shows with
official occasions and publicity purposes. A basic factor of creating a
theatre crisis and disabled its activities and development. Therefore such
situation should be changed and the connection between plays and official
occasions should be stopped. Only then the theatre could reach the audience
and develop its performance and reaction with the people.
3. No specialized places for plays equipped with basic necessary
facilities.
There is no doubt that well equipped play centers play an important
role in the success of the show.
4. Officials could not understand or comprehend the real role
of theatre.
It is well known that nations civilizations are measured with their
sciences, acknowledgment and arts, theatre represents one of the civilized
faces of nations, but unfortunately misunderstanding the real concept of
theatre and its important messages caused fatal withdraw of the literary
and cultural movement.
5. No official concern or care are paid to theatre where it
could achieve its ambitions, such matter resulted many things such as:
- No encouragement to artistic groups to
participate in Arab festivals whenever there is a chance.
- No encouragement to literary writers
and authors.
- No permission to create immature groups
with total independence.
- Theatre subject is not included among
educational programs, besides no play groups formations in schools with
special festivals at the end of each studying year.
6. No plays criticism. Objective play criticism based on accurate
scientific bases would perform an important and active role in improving
the level of writing, raise the level of creation and support the theatre
message with all human and social concepts.
While the second question's answer would be: If theatre movement in
Yemen needs to be improved and take its pioneering role in renewing the
national culture and revolutionary acts, or to stand on developed artistic
basis the following factors has to be provided:
1.The State and concerned officials should pay more attention
to theatre, directing this move to implement active roles in educating
wide audience to achieve their ambitions and dreams of social construction
and moral improvement and civilized progress. Such terms are featured in
the following:
A.Laying out well-planned annual program to organize theatre seasons
guarantee a case of continuousness with audience and apart from publicity
purposes.
B. Need to form people's play group and another one as a travelling
group with a task of presenting plays at the rural areas of Yemen.
C. Necessity of having a child theatre for the importance in the upbringing
and education process.
Stressing on the idea that theatre represents science, culture and
civilization, not as some narrow minded considered such art as a distortion
and an act of the devils.
D. Play Groups should have more freedom in moving from one place to
another for the purpose of presenting their shows in all over the country
and not limiting their performances in the capital and big cities.
In conclusion theatre movement in Yemen can take one the following contradictory
paths:
Either taking the direction of commercial theatre depending on clowning
and joking for the purpose of fast material gain which resulted into a
weak-structured theatre with no potentials to achieve its ambitions and
goals.
Or take the direction of serious national theatre basing on real mature
tradition and moral concepts aims to improve the level of Yemeni citizen,
connecting him/her with the human heritage and express his/her feelings
of pain and sorrows, trying to solve daily problems that imposes the development
process he/she look forward to obtain, destroying backwardness ties and
change the false reality resulted from the influence of colonization before
the revolution. This will lead to constructing a developed Yemeni theatre
movement.
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